Farmer's Market / Half Moon Bay

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Marigolds

Marigolds do not get much love as a cut flower. Most people use them as a companion plant for tomatoes; they have a natural insecticide and a fragrance that repels critters like rabbits from your garden.

They are absolutely fool-proof they never get any kind of fungus or other heat and wet related problems. It is this ordinariness that prevents many from seeing their possibilities as a cut flower. Now that they have been growing since early spring there are stems long enough to cut and arrange.

I put Marigolds together with Bright Lights Cosmos, Bi-colored and Red Coreopsis, Pinwheel Zinnias, and Persian Carpet Zinnias. The Marigold has a nice ferny leaf so leaving them on is all you need for filler.

Flowers are the most profitable and successful organic thing I offer at the farmer's market. From now on any food I grow I am keeping and eating, giving to friends or canning. Its just too hard to get enough to be able to sell it in bulk, and its not worth it to see all that work walk away in a bag for a few dollars. Food always was my loss leader, Im really there to sell folk art. But with my truck in the shop and my freelance jobs backing up I will probably only do the farmer's market every couple of weeks or so. 

Im going to be on a blog break for a few weeks while I paint for a show with a 7/31 deadline. This is a national juried show with good prize money. Ive come close -honorable mention which wasnt a money prize but I did get a great easel and some paint. This year I actually have a strategy and hope it pays off. The show isnt until October, the July deadline is just to see if you can get in. I had one painting get in last year but the other one was rejected. So, I need to focus. I'll be back in August. Enjoy the dog days everyone.

A Collection and a Status Report

I've been sick with one of the worst colds I have ever had this past week. The days passed slowly. Within minutes in the garden I was so hot I could not see straight or even stay focused on the tasks before me. So I limited each visit to one specific chore, like just collecting japanese and flea beetles.

I walk around with a jar of soap and water and push the beetles into it where they drown. In a few days, their decomposing bodies produce a most unpleasant scent that works very well to keep other beetles away. I learned this trick when, on my first year of food gardening, I bought a japanese beetle trap that used sex pheromones to attract beetles to the bag and theoretically away from plants. But what actually happened was I had more beetles than ever on my plants, even though I located the bag far from the garden as the instructions stated. On the box of the japanese beetle trap it said to be sure to change the bag after it rained because the bodies would decompose, stink, and render the product useless. When I read that, I knew what to do. The smell of death repels the beetle better than the scent of sex attracts.

The drought seems to have given way to a pattern of daily afternoon showers. All manner of fungi have sprung up on the rotting logs and in the springy damp mosses of the forest. I've noticed how much better the garden does with real rain than it does with being watered with the sprinkler, no matter how thoroughly. I have a garden toad that lives under the log of the second row bed with the asparagus, although I could not find him today. I was glad when I discovered him as I have been worried when I had not found even one salamander this season, though I have seen many snakes swimming in the creek this summer.

Yesterday, I finally threw in the towel and went to the walk in clinic and got a shot of steroids and some antibiotics and some codeine laced cough syrup. Im a little better now, still very hoarse, but in a day or two will probably have the essential raspy voice for a good outing at the country music karaoke at Donald Rays Brother's Place (no joke, that is the name of the bar) up in Copperhill TN. I have accomplished very little this past week, and it makes me feel as if the world is passing me by. 

Easter has been broody and creating havoc within the flock. She will not allow any other hen into the nest and so who knows where the eggs are. If any eggs are laid in the nest, Easter sits on them and when I come to take them she screetches at me, puffs up like a turkey, and when I toss her down she comes over and gives me a good dose of the "flying foot". I take her and immerse her in the creek where only her head is above water and hold her down for about 5 minutes to drop her body temp. It works for a little while but sure enough I find her back in the coop on the nest. This has been going on for days, and I am over it. Easter is in jail now. A pen with no comforts whatsoever. no shavings at all. just newspaper laid flat and no way to cuddle up or nest. I am unmoved by her mournful peeps and trills, however, I am trying to locate some fertilized bantam eggs for her to hatch. She wants to be a mother so badly I am willing to give it a shot even though it is no small feat to travel with 4 hens and 2 Rhodesian Ridgebacks. I can't imagine adding one more creature to this equation

Speaking of Ridgebacks, It was a lucky break for me that a rat has taken up residence in my barn. I call the rat "the babysitter". I have been able to nap some with this cold without worrying about where the dogs are thanks to the babysitter. This rat keeps the dogs busy for hours, no exaggeration, at a time. Eventually I will have to trap and kill this poor creature, but I swear, I have actually become fond of him. Its funny as hell to watch him toy with the dogs. I made a little video of it -very hard to do because I have to try and shoot while using a long piece of trim to motivate the rat. The sound of the dogs voices in slo-mo make me laugh every time. I need to sample those sound effects for future video work.

Thanks to everyone for your support regarding the Frida Kahlo challenge sponsored by Bohemia Beer. I did not win a prize, but I did receive an email yesterday inquiring about buying the painting for the Bohemia collection. I have given them a price and we shall see. If they agree, the day I spent on that project will have been well worth it.

As Per Trolls request in comments, here are the winners of the Frida Kahlo Challenge:

first place: Ernesto Cammacho

second place: Elizabeth Ortiz

third place: Jose Luis Padilla

you can see all the entries here

Peep Show

SR-71 the Blackbird  13 x 18 Acrylic on board

Tonight is the opening of the Peep show, a group show with bird-themed art. I have 4 pieces in the show; all of them were painted this week. That's very rare, normally it takes weeks or months to get a few pieces I like ready, but I didnt have the time or the heart with my Mom's death and another show I had in ATL and some other little jobs. This blackbird is my favorite of the lot - its the most abstracted and has a lovely surface.

When I started making folk art to sell at the farmer's market, I didn't know that it would lead me into painting on wood for my more upscale work. But I have grown to love the quality of wood as a painting ground. That big portrait of Koby was the first "real art" I painted on wood.

As an illustrator, everything I did was to be reproduced which meant painting on paper so art could be fed into a drum scanner. I painted in gouache which is a very flat paint with no reflective properties making the colors very rich. The reflective quality of acrylic paint annoys me. Its hard to see what I am doing especially if I have to use a light. Thats why I always try and paint from 10 am to 4 pm when the natural daylight is best. But acrylic lets me do things gouache cannot, like have many layers and the ability to paint out mistakes. With gouache, you really need to get it right the first time.

Etching into the wood for surface detail

What I love best about the wood is, well its cheap. When you paint on paper, and if you paint large on  paper, then you have the expense of framing. And it is expensive to do it correctly. With wood I get a 1/2 inch thick board and finish the sides and voila, it's ready to hang. They'd look better in frames but I can now leave that to a buyer.  I also like etching into the wood for added surface texture. The imperfections and the grain shows through on the final art giving it a kind of rawness that I think is more interesting than a perfectly smooth finish.  And I like that wood is hard. I never liked painting on canvas because I didnt like the give that happened when I pushed into it with a brush.

With a busy background, a simple bird image worked best

Today I am making a strawberry trifle for the show, and planting my sweet potatoes and getting the little cabin ready for a certain visitor from the PNW. Its cold here this morning. I hope it is warmer next saturday as I plan to have us float down the river  - a trip that is chilly even in July. Happy weekend to all!

Me and Valentino on a Hike

**All the pieces featured are from the Valentino Fall 2011 collection.